Spina Bifida, a congenital neural tube defect causing multi-system dysfunction. The birth of a disabled child in the family inevitably affects the family members, their lives, feelings, behavior and social life negatively. A lifelong challenge with the disease may give rise to severe pathologies to the parents or caregivers; such as somatization disorder which is characterized by various functional somatic symptoms that can not be explained by organic pathology. For the DSM-V, the diagnosis of complex somatic symptom disorder is proposed to replace the current diagnoses of somatization disorder, undifferentiated somatoform disorder, hypochondriasis and pain disorder. The proposed diagnostic criteria for complex somatic symptom disorder require the presence of somatic symptoms, together with misattributions, excessive concern or preoccupation with symptoms and illness and increased healthcare use.

We aimed to find out the relationship between somatization, depression and anxiety levels of parents with children diagnosed with SB.

Interview form, the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), and the SCL-90-R (Psychological symptoms screening test) were used. 79 individuals were included.

Severely depresssed and anxietic parents show correlating levels of somatizaton. Depression and anxiety scores were above normal range. SCL-90-R Test the ratio of general somatization level compared to other values was found to be 1.72. Parameters above 1 are considered high. This ratio was found to be 100 % in pie charts, indicating all parents had somatization.

SB is not only physical but also a psychological burden to the child as well as the parents. Families often find themselves in despair and feel powerless while giving care to their child with SB. They have a greater tendency for mood and somatization disorder, long term psychiatric follow-up and more frequent evaluations and interventions should be undertaken.

None Declared

Spina Bifida(SB) is a congenital disease can cause multi system disfunction and psychiatric symptoms.It is stated that the emotional and physical burden of the caregivers leads to increased levels of anxiety and depression.

According to Gargiulo’s stage model, is composed of three stages. In the first phase parents experience shock, denial and depression. During the secondary phase ambivalance, anger, and guilt is prominent, followed by the tertiary phase in which bargaining, acceptance and adjustment are observed. Adjustment is the process of reorganisation and realignment of the family needs and objectives and variates depending on the character of the family members.

Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), Beck Hopelessness Scale (BHS) were used in this research. 66 volunteering parents were included, 34 of them having child with SB and 32 of them having a healthy (non-SB) child.

Depression, anxiety and hopelessness scores were significantly higher in the SB group than the non-SB group. There is a significant positive correlation between education and income levels.

It is determined that the majority of the SB group did not have any support. The greatest burden the parents have is emotional breakdown, followed by economic hardships and physical fatigue. Depression, anxiety and hopelessness scores and age of affected child are negatively correlated. The younger child’s age, the higher the scores. There is a strong, negative and opposite correlation between the parents’ ages and depression scores. Although it is almost impossible for the families to avoid from the hard and long treatment process of the clarify the reasons behind the disease, activate the protective medical services and if possible do prenatal treatment in order to lessen the postnatal degree of the disease are highly significant. Therefore, financial and moral burden of the society are reduced.

None Declared

Spine Clearance; which means; SB is a congenital disease . In the first month of pregnancy, the unborn baby’s spine does not close properly is the result . In the spinal cord due to a developmental disorder often causes serious permanent disability . Multi-system associated with this congenital anomaly affected, families with infants and these infants are faced with major challenges in the future. Often the expectations of all parents is to have a normal, healthy children. The birth of a disabled child in the family, family members, their (lives, feelings , behaviors , social life) is a condition that affects negatively.

The SCL-90 is a self repost clinical rating scale oriented toward the symptomatic behavior of psychiatric outpatients. The primary symptom dimensions measured by the SCL-90 are the nine symptom constructs given below: somatization, obsessive-compulsive, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostility, phobic anxiety, paranoid ideation, psychotism. Marital adjustment test: A 15-item scale that measures marital satisfaction. It was initially used to differentiate well-adjusted couples from distressed (unsatisfied) couples. The 15 items are answered on a variety of response scales.

In this study; The SCL-90 and Marital Adjustment Test have been applied on parents of children with Spina Bifida. A total of 40 person was used which is 25 women and 15 men. Above of 1 score has been examined high level for SCL-90 test. For Marital Adjustment Test, we accept the lowest score is 1 and the highest score is 60. Cut-off score accepted is 43. If the parents have score that is below 43, is determined incompatible, and is above 43 is determined compatible.

The result has been obtained, showed us, the parents who have above 1 score for SCL-90, have below score 43 on Marital Adjustment Test.

The study show that parents who have somatization problems are not align with their partners. Participants have symptomatic problems because of their children health situation can cause an unaligned marriage. This suggests that parents of patients with diseases like SB should get the needed psychiatric help and supportive care during the course of treatment.

None Declared

Psychiatric comorbidity has a significant impact on the patient’s overall health, with an increased risk of death for those patients with mental-physical comorbidity (Tan et al., 2021). This impacts, among other things, the average hospital stay of a patient with psychiatric comorbidity. For example, an American study shows that psychiatric comorbidity was associated with greater inpatient utilization, including the risk of additional hospitalizations, days of stay, and hospitalization charges (Sayers et al., 2007). Our study aims to confirm these results in patients admitted to a general hospital for any cause and presenting psychiatric comorbidity.

To compare the mean length of stay of patients admitted to a general hospital for any cause according to whether they have psychiatric comorbidity or not.

We made a descriptive retrospective study through the use of electronic medical records. The drug use history and average day of hospitalization were obtained for all patients admitted to the inpatient service of a general hospital during a 3-year period.

The mean length of stay was longer in patients with psychiatric comorbidity (mean = 9.87 days, SD = 15.45) than in patients without psychiatric comorbidity (mean = 5.23 days, SD = 7.16), the difference being statistically significant for the analysis of variance with a small effect size (F = 18.2; p < 0.001, η²=0.038). The assumption of the equality of variances of the two groups is not fulfilled (Levene F = 29.0; p < 0.01) so Welch’s nonparametric test was applied, whose results do not modify those obtained.

Our results are in line with other studies, showing a longer mean length of stay in those patients admitted for any cause and with associated psychiatric comorbidity. This highlights the importance of having an integrated psychiatry service in a general hospital, as Bronson points out, where they find a shorter mean length of stay in units that have integrated, proactive psychiatric care (Bronson et al., 2019).

Bronson, B. D., Alam, A., & Schwartz, J. E. (2019). The Impact of Integrated Psychiatric Care on Hospital Medicine Length of Stay: A Pre-Post Intervention Design With a Simultaneous Usual Care Comparison. Psychosomatics.

Sayers, S. L., Hanrahan, N., Kutney, A., Clarke, S. P., Reis, B. F., & Riegel, B. (2007). Psychiatric comorbidity and greater hospitalization risk, longer length of stay, and higher hospitalization costs in older adults with heart failure. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

Tan, X. W., Lee, E. S., Toh, M., Lum, A., Seah, D., Leong, K. P., Chan, C., Fung, D., & Tor, P. C. (2021). Comparison of mental-physical comorbidity, risk of death and mortality among patients with mental disorders - A retrospective cohort study. Journal of psychiatric research.

None Declared

Spina Bifida (SB) is a closure defect of the neural tube. Affecting multiple systems of the body, this disease also affects families psychologically.

In this study, our aim was to investigate levels of psychiatric symptoms, depression, anxiety, despair and coping with stress in parents of children with Spina Bifida.

From the follow-up patients’ families of our hospital’s neurosurgery unit, a total number of 80 parents were included in this study. Sociodemographic data form, The Structured Clinical Interview -Clinical Version (SCID-I / CV) for DSM-IV Axis Diagnosis, Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Symptom Checklist (SCL-90-R), Beck Hopelessness Scale (BHS) and Coping with Stress Scale were performed.

The mean age of parents of children with Spina Bifida diagnosis was 34.44±7.00. Psychiatric symptoms and inventory scores are displayed on the table.Table 1:Clinic Inventory Scores of Cases

It was determined that psychiatric symptoms such as anxiety, depression, difficulty in coping with stress can be seen among parents of children with SB. This suggests that parents of patients with diseases like SB should get the needed psychiatric help and supportive care during the course of treatment.

None Declared

Spina Bifida(SB), in other terms called spine openness, is a prenatal disease occur due to improper closure of the spine of the fetus during the first months of the pregnancy.

Having a disabled child or to observe deficiency in a child regardless of its level is a highly stressful situation for the families. To take care of such children causes an emotional and physical burden on the parents. Thus, this leads to an increase in the level of depression and anxiety on these individuals, causes health related problems and an increase in the drug usage.

Beck depression Inventory and stress coping strategies scale have been applied to 66 parents consisting of 39 female and 27 males. The cut-off scores for Beck Depression Inventory were 1-10 for normal, 11-16 for mild mood disturbance, 17-20 for borderline clinical depression, 21-30 for moderate depression, 31-40 for severe depression. For stress coping strategies scale higher scores correlated with the intensity of coping mechanisms listed on the scale.

Acquired data from 66 parents show a positive correlation between Beck Depression Inventory and Stress coping strategies scale

The lower the individuals BDI scores, the lower the stress coping strategies scale scores were meaning that the intensity of depression correlates with the level of coping mechanisms. This suggests that parents of patients with diseases like SB should get the needed psychiatric help and supportive care during the course of treatment.

None Declared

Schizoaffective Disorder is frequently associated with somatic and addictive comorbidities. This association can change the expression of the disease as well as its prognosis. In addition, this association can affect many functional and psychosocial aspects that can lead to impaired quality of life (QOL) and overall functioning of patients.

the aims of this work were to study the impact of somatic and addictive comorbidities on QOL and global functioning of patients followed for schizoaffective disorder.

This is a cross-sectional study carried out at the psychiatric consultation of the University Hospital of Mahdia for a period of 6 months. The evaluation of the QOL was made using a generic instrument for measuring quality of life: the SF-36 in its version in literary Arabic using the Global Evaluation of Functioning scale .

fifty-two patients with schizoaffective disorder were included in the study. The age of the patients varied from 29 to 62 years with an average of 38 years. The sex ratio (M/F) was 1.6. Singles accounted for 46.2%. Somatic comorbidities were found in 30.8% of patients. Diabetes ranked first (13.5%) followed by arterial hypertension (9.6%) then epilepsy (3.8%). Addictive comorbidities were noted in 63.5% of patients. Tobacco, alcohol and Cannabis were the most consumed substances with respective rates of 57.7; 28.8 and 13.5%. The evaluation of the QoL of the patients revealed that 80.8% of the patients had scores attesting to an altered QoL. Regarding the evaluation of global functioning by EGF, (65.4%) of patients had a score of less than 70 attesting to an impairment of global functioning. The analytical study of correlation between the dimensions of the SF-36 and somatic comorbidities found that dimension D1 (physical activity) is significantly influenced by somatic comorbidities (10-4). The deterioration in the global functioning of the patients was not correlated with the presence of somatic comorbidities (p=0.28). The change in QoL was not correlated with the consumption of psychoactive substances (0.32 for alcohol and p=0.23 for drug addiction).

It is accepted that the objectives of the management of patients suffering from schizoaffective disorder go beyond the remission of clinical symptoms to the improvement of QoL and socio-professional functioning. Larger-scale work is needed to study the influence of comorbidities associated with schizoaffective disorder on these dimensions.

None Declared

Antipsychotic agents (AP) are widely used drugs to treat psychotic symptoms. For decades, some studies suggested that there is a relationship between using (AP) and the risk of venous thromboembolism (VTE) and pulmonary embolism (PE). The causality of this association, its risk factors, and its implications for clinical practice have not been fully elucidated.

We undertook a systematic literature review to evaluate the evidence for an association between antipsychotic medication and venous thromboembolic events (VTE) and to identify risk factors for these adverse effects.

To identify relevant studies, we searched the PubMed, Science Direct databases up using the following keywords « pulmonary embolism », « venous thromboembolism » « antipsychotics agents ». We also searched the reference lists relevant articles for related studies.

Twelve articles are included in this analysis and indicate an elevated risk of VTE in antipsychotic drug users. The results showed that compared with non-users, current AP users have significantly increased risks of VTE. The risk of venous thrombosis in obese people was higher than that in overweight people, patients not less than 65 years old had an increased risk compared with younger patients . In addition, women taking antipsychotics had a higher risk of pulmonary embolism than men. The other factors that increased risk were use of second-generation antipsychotics and antipsychotic polytherapy. The highest risk was noted in the first 3 months of treatment. Data also suggested a dose-dependent increase in the risk of thrombotic complications. For individual drugs, increased risk of VTE and PE was observed in taking clozapine , haloperidol, risperidone and olanzapine. Clozapine was associated with the highest risk. However, careful interpretation is needed because of high heterogeneity among studies and scarce data.

The use of antipsychotics will increase the risk of venous thromboembolism and pulmonary embolism, which will be affected by AP and patient characteristics.

None Declared

Antipsychotic-related hematological abnormalities have been reported in the literature, but remain a rare complication of some second-generation antipsychotic drugs. It has been suggested that risperidone is the preferred alternative when adverse hematological effects have been induced by conventional antipsychotic drugs. Blood dyscrasia adverse reactions have been reported rarely with risperidone.

We aims to call attention to leukopenia as a potential side effect of during treatment with risperidone.

We report a case in which a patient developed leukoneutropenia during treatment with risperidone

A 46-year-old man was admitted to psychiatric department for aggressive behavior. The patient had a history of right bundle branch block and has been diagnosed with schizophrenia at age of 36 years. This patient had only one psychiatric hospitalization in 2021 where he developed persistent leuko-neutropenia. A viral cause was retained. The patient was discharged on risperidone 4 mg and had been poorly compliant with his antipsychotic medication for the last year.

Currently, the patient was excited, very talkative and refused medication. He received an intramuscular injection of haloperidol 10 mg and chlorpromazine 50 mg. Under these doses, the patient became sedated and his balance sheet showed a leukoneuropenia amounting to 1960 cells/mm3. Then, it was decided to stop chlorpromazine and Haloperidol and put the patient on Diazepam. A complete blood count was done the next day showing that his white Blood Cells (WBC) count went up to 4360 cells /mm3 (neutrophils rate = 62,4 %). The reintroduction of haloperidol with diazepam caused the WBC to fall back to 2000. Haloperidol stopped as a possible cause of the leucopenia. The patient started taking risperidone orally 1 mg daily, which was gradually up titrated to 4 mg daily. Two weeks later the WBC went up to 4680 cells/mm3 (neutrophil rate = 60,4%) three week after stopping haloperidol. However, three days after increasing the dose of risperidone to 5 mg the leukoneutropenia recurred, (WBC = 2960 cells/mm3, neutrophil rate = 41%). When risperidone was reduced to 4 mg, his WBC count remained stable for two weeks (WBC = 2970, neutrophil rate = 48,9%). Clinically , the patient is no longer excited.

Risperidone-induced leuko-neutropenia (RILN) is very unusual and its incidence rate is unknown. Currently, there are no evidence-based alternative antipsychotic recommandations for RILN. For the case presented here, we achieved stabilisation of RILN by dose reduction.

Routine monitoring of the WBC level of patients on risperidone treatment, regardless of their hematological baseline, might be good practice for all psychiatrists. We recommend extending this practice to inpatient and outpatient services.

None Declared

The COVID-19 outbreak had significant implications worldwide, including mental health. Consultations in the Emergency Service of the Hospital Clínic of Barcelona varied in terms of reasons for consultations, psychopathology, and other aspects, before and during the pandemic.

This study aims to assess differences in the profile of patients admitted within the last three years to the Psychiatric Emergency Service of a third-level hospital, in order to analyze variations in the number of patients visited, diagnoses and admissions throughout the different seasons.

All adults admitted from 2019 to 2021 to the Psychiatric Emergency Service of Hospital Clínic of Barcelona, Spain, were retrospectively included for analysis and divided into three groups depending on the year they attended the Emergency Service. SPSS v25.0 and R statistics were used in order to compare differences between groups.

A total of 13677 adult individuals who attended the psychiatric emergency service of Hospital Clínic of Barcelona between 2019 and 2021 were included in the analysis. 4814 patients were visited in 2019, 4007 in 2020 and 4856 in 2021. The majority of patients were male (50.1%), with a mean age of 40.47 years (SD 15.83). In terms of acute admission rates, 24.6% of the total sample were hospitalized in an acute psychiatric unit, whereas in the spring of 2020, 34.3% of patients attending the Emergency Service were hospitalized. This revealed significant differences when compared with spring of 2019 and 2021 and with the rest of seasons (p<0.05). With regard to suicide attempts and intentional poisonings, significant differences were only observed between winter of 2019, with the lowest rate, and autumn of 2020, with the highest proportion. In spring of 2019, the lowest rate of patients attending with suicidal ideation was observed, which showed significant differences compared to winter of 2020, spring of 2021, summer of 2021 and autumn of 2021 (p<0.05). Also, statistically significant differences between winter of 2019 and summer of 2021 and also between summer of 2019 and summer of 2021 were observed, with the highest rate in the last one. No significant differences were observed in rates of patients with severe mental disorders visited.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the situation of lockdown lead to an overall reduction in the overall consultations to the Emergency Service, being this reduction non-significant in patients with severe mental disorders, such as psychotic disorders. In addition, our study shows a decrease in consultations with suicidal ideation in summer of 2019 and a significant increase in summer of 2021. In contrast, an increased tendency in suicide attempts was not observed.

None Declared

Following the surge of the COVID-19 pandemic, some people have been experiencing severe mental health consequences related to pandemic stress, fear of contagion, lockdown, and measures to avoid contagion and virus spread. These aspects contributed to an increase in anxious-depressive symptoms in the general population (Asmundson et al. J Anx Dis 2020; 70 102196).

The study aims at verifying the hypothesis that Italian patients with a diagnosis of a mental disorder showed more severe depressive, anxiety and stress-related symptoms compared to the general Italian population in the context of the current pandemic.

Nine hundred sixty-one volunteer subjects (542 females, 415 males; mean age 39.42, SD = 14.5) completed the Covid-Stress-Scale (CSS) (Taylor et al. J Anx Dis 2020; 72 102232) and the Depression-Anxiety-Stress Scales-21 (DASS-21) (Bottesi et al. Compr Psych 2015; 60 170-81) through a self-report survey. Participants have been assessed for between-group differences through the chi-square test for categoric variables and one-way ANOVA for continuous variables.

One hundred and thirty subjects (13.53% of the whole sample) reported a diagnosis of a mental disorder for which they received medications. Among these subjects, 47.8% reported a diagnosis of anxiety disorder, 29% major depressive disorder, 2.7% bipolar disorder, and 20.4% other mental disorders. Among patients, there was a prevalence of females (chi-square = 15.84; p < 0.001), more severe depressive (F = 34.25; p < 0.001), anxiety (F = 46.15; p < 0.001), and stress-related symptoms (F = 39.38; p < 0.001) at the DASS-21 scale. The patient group also showed a tendency to more severe traumatic stress related to the pandemic (F = 3.64; p = 0.057) at factor IV of the CSS, without significant differences in the other factors of the CSS.

The hypothesis is partially confirmed, considering that patients showed more severe depressive, anxiety and stress-related symptoms and a tendency to more severe pandemic traumatic stress. Nevertheless, in all other pandemic-related symptoms we analyzed (i.e., xenophobia, increase of medical assessments, fear of contagion), there were no differences between the group of patients and the general population. In this sense, in the current scenario in Italy, symptoms directly related to pandemic stress are almost the same in both the general population and patients with mental disorders.

None Declared

Approximately 15% of all pregnant women experience emotional changes that increase the risk of anxiety and depression, which can in turn adversely affect their health and their developing foetuses. There are literature reports indicating a significantly higher prevalence of anxiety and depressive symptoms in pregnant women during the COVID-19 pandemic than before the pandemic; however, their exact prevalence is currently unknown.

The aim of this study was to analyse and assess the prevalence of COVID-19 anxiety symptoms and to investigate the attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccination among pregnant women in Poland.

The study included 288 women at different stages of pregnancy as the study group and 307 women of reproductive age (18-49 years) as the control group. A total of 595 women participated in the study. The study used a diagnostic survey method with a web-based questionnaire consisting of the author’s survey questionnaire and the following standardised tools: the Scale to Measure the Perception of SARS-CoV-2 Vaccines Acceptance (VAC-COVID-19 SCALE), the Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S), the Drivers of COVID-19 Vaccination Acceptance Scale (DrVac-COVID19S) and the Coronavirus Anxiety Scale (CAS).

According to 25% of the study group and 42% of the control group, vaccination was safe and necessary, while 10% of pregnant women and 8% of women of reproductive age believed that the vaccine was dangerous. We found statistically significant differences between the groups for CAS (p = 0.025), DrVac-COVID19S (p = 0.00) or VAC-COVID-19 (p = 0.00). From the results, it can be seen that pregnant women scored significantly lower. Furthermore, both pregnant women and controls showed a high level of vaccine acceptance and positive attitudes towards it. The mean VAC-COVID-19 score was 44.26 in the control group and 41.44 in the study group, while the mean DrVac-COVID19S score was 51.25 for pregnant women and 55.85 for women of reproductive age. The mean CAS score was 0.61 in the pregnant group and 1.03 in the control group, respectively, suggesting a low level of anxiety associated with COVID-19. Other results on the severity of anxiety and fear of coronavirus were obtained using the FCV-19S. The mean score oscillated around 15 out of a possible 35, indicating moderate anxiety.

Pregnant women generally showed moderate COVID-19 anxiety, but the results varied depending on the tool used. VAC-COVID-19 and DrVac-COVID19S scores confirmed the high level of vaccine acceptance among the women surveyed and positive attitudes towards it. There was a strong positive correlation between VAC-COVID-19 and DrVac-COVID19S. Insufficient knowledge of the effects or complications of the vaccine in the foetus were the most common reason for COVID-19 vaccine refusal among pregnant women.

None Declared

The COVID-19 outbreak imposed several periods of lockdown to stop the pandemic, with a determinant impact on access to mental health services. In Portugal, the first State of Emergency was declared on the 18th of March 2020, with the obligation of mandatory confinement and circulation restriction. Restrictive measures were alleviated on the 2nd of May 2020.

We aimed to investigate the impact of the first confinement on the maintenance or loss of psychiatric and psychological follow-up. Also, we aimed to explore the outcomes in the mental health of losing psychiatric or psychological consultations.

We conducted an online survey among the Portuguese population to evaluate demographic, clinical and mental health variables (STAI, DASS-21, PHQ, OCI-R, Quality of Life [QoL] and PSS). Individuals were invited to answer the survey at two timepoints: third week of March 2020 and third week of May 2020. Concerning the first timepoint, we used independent t-tests to compare the mental health variables in the individuals who loss and who did not lose consultations. Then, we evaluated the impact of losing consultations across time in those individuals who continued responding in the second timepoint, through a Linear Fixed Model. All the analyses were performed using JASP software.

From the total sample (n=2040), 334 individuals (84.4% female gender) had psychiatric and/or psychological consultations previously to the confinement. In March 2020, the individuals who maintained the consultations (35.0%) showed best mental health indicators in the QoL Self Evaluation (p=0.002), QoL Satisfaction (p=0.037), STAI State (p<0.001), DASS-21 (p=0.001), PHQ (p<0.001), OCI-R (p=0.002) and PSS (p<0.001). Among the matched individuals who answered the survey in May 2020 (n=93), we found that the group who maintained follow-up (n=24) did not improve significantly more than the other group (n=69) for any of the mental health variables in study.

The results indicate that stopping psychiatric and psychological follow-up represented worse mental health outcomes at the beginning of the first confinement. However, anxiety feelings improved at the end of the first confinement, which happened independently of psychiatric/ psychological follow-up.

None Declared

The COVID-19 pandemic precipitated numerous changes in daily life, including the cancellation and restriction of sports trainings and competitions globally. Because engagement in sports contributes positively to the physical and psychosocial development of adolescents, restricting these activities may have led to long-term changes in mental health, especially among high school student-athletes that spend a significant amount of time training and competing.

We sought to (1) compare overall prevalence rates and symptom severity of depression and anxiety between 2021 and 2022, (2) assess cohort and class-level differences on internalizing measures, and (3) identify demographic and health risk factors for developing depressive and anxiety symptoms in 2022 and compare the composition of these models predicting depression and anxiety with those proposed by Håkansson et al. (Front. sports act. living 2022; 4 943402) on student-athletes in the 2021 sample.

Using a cross-sectional study design with repeated measures, we measured rates of depression using the Patient Health Questionnaire-2 scale (PHQ-2) and anxiety using the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-2 scale (GAD-2) in student-athletes attending elite sport high schools in Sweden during the second wave of the pandemic (February 2021) and after all restrictions were lifted (February 2022).

As illustrated in Table 1, the overall prevalence of depression among student-athletes declined significantly from 19.8% in 2021 to 17.8% in 2022, whereas the percentage of student-athletes screening for anxiety did not change significantly (17.4% in 2021 to 18.4% in 2022).Table 1Depression and Anxiety Measures 2021-2022

Cohort-level analyses revealed older students exhibited decreases in depressive symptoms (Figure 1), while younger cohorts experienced increases in symptoms of anxiety (Image 2) from 2021 to 2022. Logistic regressions revealed that being female, reporting poorer mental health due to COVID-19, and excessive worry over one’s career in sports were significant predictors of both depression and anxiety screenings in the 2022 sample (Image 2).

Image:

Image 2:

In comparison to periods when sports participation was limited in February 2021, the lifting of restrictions in February 2022 was associated with overall reduced levels of depression, but not anxiety.

M. Andersson: None Declared, G. Kenttä: None Declared, K. Moesch: None Declared, E. Borg: None Declared, E. Claesdotter-Knutsson: None Declared, A. Håkansson Grant / Research support from: AH receives financing from the Swedish state-owned gambling operator, AB Svenska Spel, and the state-owned alcohol monopoly. Neither were involved in the study planning, execution, or decision to publish the current article.

The healthcare environment is a special work environment. It exposes the staff to physical and psychological constraints. Interns starting their careers during this pandemic were exposed to additional stressors in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic.

We aimed to screen for depression and generalized anxiety disorder among medical interns during the COVID-19 pandemic.

We conducted a cross-sectional study, through a pre-established anonymous questionnaire for Tunisian medical interns. This questionnaire was shared online on social networks in April 2022. Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) and General Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) were used. The collected data were processed and analyzed by IBM SPSS statistics software.

Our population consisted of 82 interns. The average age was 25.47±1.84 and 76.8% were female. Sixty-one per cent of our population had priors of COVID-19 infection. The mean of the PHQ-9 score was 10.90±6.34. Only 12.2% had a normal PHQ-9 score and nearly one-third of interns had self-harm and suicidal thoughts. Symptoms of moderate to severe depression were observed in 25.6% of interns. The mean of the GAD-7 score was 9.17±5.20. A further specialized evaluation was required in 39.1% of interns who scored 10 or greater. Bivariate analysis showed that the PHQ-9 and GAD-7 scores were correlated (p=0.002, r= 0.78). They were not associated with sex, age, or medical history.

Medical interns, who just started their professional careers during an important COVID-19 wave, suffered greatly in terms of mental health. Serious attention and evaluation are needed for this fragile young category of healthcare professionals.

None Declared

A 2020 study in Wuhan residents reported 70.2% of participants faced the COVID-19 pandemic using active coping strategies, and we wanted to explore its comparability in Chinese Health Care Workers (HCWs) across 7 regions in China 1 year after the initial outbreak.

The study analyzed coping strategies utilized by different Chinese HCWs under a stressful period like the COVID-19 pandemic and three psychological scales were used to assess its effect on five psychological outcomes such as depression, anxiety, stress, post-traumatic stress disorder and suicidal ideation.

A cross-sectional self-administered online questionnaire was conducted during the period of November 2020 and March 2021 and included sociodemographic information, work environment before and during the pandemic, experiences, fears and concerns about COVID-19 and three psychological scales including Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale-21(DASS-21), Primary Care PTSD Screen for DSM-5 (PC-PTSD-5) and Simplified Coping Style Questionnaire (SCSQ-20). Chi-square analysis was used to explore categorical association.

The findings demonstrated that 633 (52.5%) of the participants used passive coping strategies, while 600 (47.5%) used active coping strategies. Passive coping strategies with at least one mental health problem were positively correlated with participants having a previous chronic disease diagnosis, working days in a week during the outbreak, PPE availability, days in isolation for being suspected or a confirmed case of COVID-19, worries about infecting relatives and the pandemic affecting family’s financial situation.

Developing and creating intervention programs to strengthen active coping strategies will improve mental health outcomes in Chinese HCWs during the COVID pandemic.

None Declared

Functioning in acute inpatient psychiatric units has been challenged by the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Patients with more severe mental health symptoms changed their rates of voluntary admission to psychiatric wards during the onset of the pandemic. Peritraumatic distress scores and increased likelihood of being psychologically affected by the COVID-19 pandemic can lead to a psychiatric admission. However, other factors could prevent hospitalization.

The present investigation aimed at admission rates of patients by depression, adjustment disorder or suicidal behaviour to a General Hospital Psychiatric Ward. We compared the lockdown due to COVID-19 in 2020 to similar periods of 2018 and 2019.

The data of one general hospital psychiatric ward admissions have been obtained and analysed. We compared admission characteristics of 237 patients between April and June of 2018 and 2019 with 79 patients in the same period of 2020 (lockdown).

During the COVID-19 lockdown, there was a 35.8% reduction in psychiatric admissions and a significant reduction in psychiatric admission was observed due to suicidal behaviour (IRR = 0.49; 95% CI: 0.26-0.89; p=0.002) and depression (IRR = 0.24; 95% CI: 0.08-0.68; p=0.007), but similar rates of adjustment disorders (IRR = 1.12; 95% CI: 0.58-2.15; p=0.73).

We suggest that patients with depression or suicidal behaviour avoided admission, for fear of contagion in hospitals. Also, greater family support could prevent self-injurious behaviours. By contrast, other disorders continued to require the same admission rate, since the social consequences derived from confinement could lead to the genesis or worsening of symptoms, such as adjustment disorders.

None Declared

According to Article 5 of the Maria da Penha Law, domestic and family violence against women constitutes any action or omission based on gender that causes her death, injury, physical, sexual or psychological suffering, and moral or patrimonial damage, within the scope of the domestic unit, the family or any intimate relationship of affection. In isolation, domestic violence is already considered by the WHO a public health problem. In the context of a pandemic, as was the case with COVID-19, the issue had the severity increase.

To investigate the rates of domestic and family violence against women in the city of São João Batista, State of Santa Catarina, Brazil, between January 1, 2019, and December 31, 2020, relating the data to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Descriptive cross-sectional study, operationalized by the technique of bibliographic and documentary research.

There was a reduction in the total number of crimes involving domestic and family violence against women in the city of São João Batista/SC, Brazil. While in 2019 there was a notification of 116 crimes, in 2020 the number dropped to 65. (Graph 1)

The most frequent crimes in both years were: threat and bodily injury. Together they accounted for 83% of cases in 2020. (Graph 2)

The apparent decrease in the number of notifications does not necessarily represent a decrease in cases of domestic violence, but rather, it may mean fear of leaving the residence to formalize the complaint, difficulty in carrying it out, or even the worsening of factors that increase the risk in these situations, such as reduction or total loss of income and support network.

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The scenario presented shows the need for preventive public policies regarding the problem of domestic and family violence against women. The creation and strengthening of community and personal networks are fundamental.

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The ongoing pandemic due to coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is not only causing casualties amongst patients but is also putting an enormous strain on healthcare workers worldwide, especially those in frontline of the COVID-19.

This study examined the influence of pandemic fatigue on physicians’ mental health, with resilience as a mediator.

This was a descriptive, cross-sectional study involving frontline young doctors at two university hospitals of Sfax, Tunisia. The Pandemic Fatigue Questionnaire, Brief resilience scale, Maslach Burnout Inventory and Satisfaction on call duty scale were used to collect data through an online survey. The survey was carried out through an anonymous questionnaire using Google Forms. Collected data was treated on SPSS program to make all the statistical analysis. The level of statistical significance was set at p<0.05.

A total of 261 young doctors responded to the online survey. The mean pandemic fatigue score was 25.09 (out of 50). Terminal years of residency experience (β=0.171, p=0.005), being vaccinated (β=0.129, p=0.032) and staff inadequacy (β=0.205, p=0.001) were associated with elevated score of pandemic fatigue. Resilience partially mediated the relationships between (a) pandemic fatigue and different dimensions of burnout (emotional exhaustion (β=0.337, p<0.0001), depersonalization (β=0.311, p<0.0001) and personal accomplishment (β= =0.185, p=0.004) and (b) pandemic fatigue and satisfaction on call duty (β=-0.137, p=0.03).

Resilience reduces the effects of pandemic fatigue on young doctors’ mental health. Implementing resilience-promoting measures is essential to support physicians’ mental health and foster their well-being therefore improves the quality of care provided.

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The COVID‑19 pandemic has raised multiple psychological challenges among most healthcare workers, from anxiety to depression, burnout, sleep disorders, and substance use disorders. Thus, the burden caused by this prolonged medical crisis has inevitably drastically lowered the quality of life of the medical staff. In order to mitigate the negative effects of the pandemic, healthcare workers resorted to various coping strategies, with better or worse outcomes.

The present study aims to identify Romanian physicians’ main coping mechanisms and evaluate the role of positive and negative stress-reducing strategies on quality of life.

A cross‑sectional national survey was conducted using a web-based questionnaire among physicians practicing in Romania (n=265). In addition to socio-demographic and professional information, the questionnaire addressed participants’ coping mechanisms using the COPE inventory and quality of life with the WHOQOL-Brief scale. Descriptive statistics, Pearson correlations, and multiple linear regressions were used in the statistical analysis.

In total, 265 physicians consented to their participation in the survey. Of those who responded, 84.5% identified as female, 92.1% had a permanent residence in a urban setting, 63.8% were married and 55.1% attained a master’s degree, a PhD diploma or equivalent level of education. The results showed that optimism was higher in male professionals, while avoidance coping was higher in female health professionals. The mean values of QoL subscales were: 74.7± 18.3 for the general quality of life, 70.8± 20.7 for health satisfaction, 64.0± 14.2 for the physical area, 61.7± 16.2 for the psychological area, 61.2± 20.3 for the social relationships area and 64.7± 12.7 for the environment area. Specific coping mechanisms (emotional venting, behavioral and mental disengagement) were associated with lower quality of life. In contrast, emotion-focused (positive reinterpretation and acceptance), problem-focused strategies (planning, active coping, suppression of competing activities) and humor were associated positively with most QoL subscales scores.

Our data points to specific protective characteristics and some detrimental factors on physicians’ quality of life during the pandemic, with the implication that these factors may be important considerations for mitigating distress and psychiatric disorders for healthcare workers during times of high stress. Concerted initiatives to improve wellness in healthcare workers ought to develop targeted programs to ensure adequate psychological support.

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